"...it's helpful that V-E Day should connect us to past political behavior of real relevance, such as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 or the Yalta Agreement of 1945, both of which Mr. Bush criticized this week.
Diplomacy has its uses, as in negotiating free-trade agreements, but I think that an appraisal of the politics of the 20th century would not conclude that diplomacy would have proven better than overwhelming force, or its threat, at stopping several formerly civilized societies from becoming the homicidal hells Mr. Bush described in his Latvia speech. But is there a better way than mobilizing men at arms?
George Bush gave his answer to that question in Riga, and his answer - a political template for the future - deserves more attention than re-debating the road to ruin at Yalta."
After a century that saw far more people murdered by governments than killed in wartime (169M to 36M, by one estimate), I agree. So let's discuss:
We'll start with the source: President George W. Bush's "Yalta Speech" in the Small Guild Hall in Riga, Latvia (May 7, 2005)
It was a fine speech - and overall, I'm with Anne Applebaum on the partisan takes: Clinton was right to apologize for slavery in 1998 to his African audience, and Rep. Tom DeLay was petty in criticizing him for it. Likewise, Bush was right to apologize for the pain of Yalta in Eastern Europe - and more so, to focus on the contemporary lesson rather than wallow in the past.
Still, precisely because the legacy of Yalta has been the subject of attacks from the President's opponents on the left and the right, we need to start there.
The biggest practical result of Yalta was agreement on Germany's unconditional surrender as the non-negotiable condition for ending World War 2. This was especially important to the Russians, who were justifiably concerned that Germany would attempt to make a separate peace with the western allies. Churchill and Roosevelt, who had spent the last 5 years watching the bloody wages of an incomplete victory over Germany in the First World War, agreed. Other legacies are noted in this Wikipedia entry on The Yalta Conference.
Now, was there an alternative at the time? Yes, there was, though Vodkapundit's recent fisking of Pat Buchanan is correct in noting that there was simply no will in the western democracies for continued war to enforce Yalta's terms. Although the USA was alone in having the atomic bomb post-war, it was not considered to be an option at the time to use these weapons on Soviet cities. With perfect hindsight, this might have actually led to less global loss of life over the past 60 years - but that's not certain, and that kind of hindsight critique is meaningless anyway. It just wasn't gonna happen, and many sections of Yalta were probably the reasonable thing to do at the time, given what everyone knew.
As a result, however, millions were left in slavery and millions more would die. Worse, under the terms of Yalta tens of thousands of Russians were forcibly repatriated to the Soviet Union at gunpoint by the Allies. Almost all would die in the Gulags. That was worse than a blunder - it was a crime.
Does all that invalidate the moral cause of the World War 2? No. The outcome of a war need not be perfect to be justified. Nazi apologist Pat Buchanan seems to think so, making him an excellent fit for the "anti-war," anti-West crowd. Life is imperfect, and war is necessary, and mistakes are made.
Having said that, an apology for mistakes and bad outcomes is the decent thing to do after the war is won. If you've read books by East Bloc dissenters and understand their experience, you'll come across their bewilderment and pain again and again. In their minds, America had the power to act but refused to do so, while they and their friends suffered by the millions and died in the darkness. This sense would be compounded in later years, as those like Vaclav Havel and Adam Michnik felt abandoned a second time. Czechoslovakian dissident and eventually President Vaclav Havel:
""How much trust or even admiration for the Western peace movement can we expect from a simple yet sensitive citizen of Eastern Europe when he has noticed that this movement has never, at any of its congresses or at demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of participants, got around to protesting the fact that five years ago, one important European country attacked a small neutral neighbor and since that time has been conducting on its territory a war of extermination which has already claimed a million dead and three million refugees? Seriously, what are we to think of a peace movement, a European peace movement, which is virtually unaware of the only war being conducted today by a European state? As for the argument that the victims of aggression and their defenders enjoy the sympathies of Western establishments and so are not worthy of support from the left, such incredible ideological opportunism can provoke only one reaction -- utter disgust and a sense of limitless hopelessness."
With World War III won and the evil Soviet empire on the ash-heap of history, President Bush is right to say this:
"The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history."
Because it was. Their captors were Marxist ideology, the Soviet Union, and all of their apologists around the world who were willingly complicit in that evil. The President recognized that the freedom of millions was lost, and rightly acknowledges with sorrow the suffering that resulted.
In Clintonic terms, "he feels their pain."
Anne Applebaum, the author of one of the definitve works on Russia's Gulag system, notes:
"Both left and right would do better to stand back and think harder about how important it is for American diplomacy, and even Americans' understanding of their own past, when U.S. presidents, Republican or Democrat, admit that not every past U.S. policy was successful - which, by any measure, Yalta was not."
It was not - but the President is not repudiating American foreign policy if you read the actual speech. Once Yalta's failure became clear, FDR's successor President Truman began to act. W.:
"The end of World War II raised unavoidable questions for my country: Had we fought and sacrificed only to achieve the permanent division of Europe into armed camps? Or did the cause of freedom and the rights of nations require more of us? Eventually, America and our strong allies made a decision: We would not be content with the liberation of half of Europe - and we would not forget our friends behind an Iron Curtain. We defended the freedom of Greece and Turkey, and airlifted supplies to Berlin, and broadcast the message of liberty by radio."
In bridging to what comes next, W. does elide over a central Cold War policy disagreement: containment vs. rollback/liberation as U.S. policy. We've discussed the 1947 Truman Doctrine here before, opposed from both the Democratic Left (which was pro-Soviet) and the Republican Right (which advocated rollback). Yet in 1952, when Eisenhower and rollback-supporter Richard Nixon won, the Truman Doctrine stayed. Thanks to traitors like Fuchs, the Rosenbergs et. al., the Soviets had exploded their own atomic bomb in 1949. Necessity would make The Truman Doctrine of containment a bipartisan U.S. policy for more than 3 decades.
By the late 1970s, however, the Brezhnev Doctrine of aggressive Soviet expansionism, coupled with a growing failure to deliver at home, led to a shift in the USA. W. gets this next bit in the right order, too, because it began with strong, principled moral clarity on the status quo of communism - as opposed to the mushy moral equivocation, minimization of its evil, or excuses that had become so common. America would push for freedom when it could, and compromise only when it must - but that would be a necessary evil, acknowledged as such rather than trumpeted as a moral good.
Communism was now weak enough, and the West's power had advanced enough by comparison, that new possibilities were arising. Containment could be seen as a wise strategy in its time, but the times they were a'changin'. Against the wishes, counsel, and frequently the vituperative opposition of the Left, the challenge was met and an opportunity was seized:
"We spoke up for dissenters, and challenged an empire to tear down a hated wall. Eventually, communism began to collapse under external pressure, and under the weight of its own contradictions."
As many now acknowledge today, Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech, so bitterly criticized by liberals and the Democratic Party, had a galvanizing effect on those behind the Iron Curtain. Later, President Reagan's Berlin Wall speech, which faced similar criticism and resistance as the epitome of his uneducated cowboy approach (does the Left ever get new lines?), would become the touchstone of his global legacy.
Many of us have watched recent events in Lebanon. We see the growing seriousness of the internal discussions about democracy and liberty amidst the internal contradictions of the Middle East's failed societies. We hear the endless vituperation of the Left. And we remember Reagan.
Nor are we alone. Could Bush Be Right?, asked his traditional enemies at the German magazine Der Spiegel, as they recalled their own misjudgment in opposing Reagan's victorious approach. Speaking of W.:
"And we set the vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace - so dictators could no longer rise up and feed ancient grievances, and conflict would not be repeated again and again."
A vision Clinton was true to in Bosnia. Truman, to Reagan, to Clinton... to George W. Bush. While the USA had sometimes compromised its ideals of freedom abroad, Bush admitted, it had never abandoned those ideals.
Now the times they were a'changin' again - and it was time for American foreign policy to change, too.
"For all the problems that remain, it is a miracle of history that this young century finds us speaking about the consolidation of freedom throughout Europe. And the stunning democratic gains of the last several decades are only the beginning. Freedom is not tired. The ideal of human dignity is not weary. And the next stage of the world democratic movement is already unfolding in the broader Middle East."
It's no coincidence that countries who experiences slavery post-Yalta have recognized this, and stepped up in the Middle East:
"The Baltic states are members of a global coalition, and each is making essential contributions every day. Lithuania is preparing to deploy a reconstruction team to western Afghanistan, and has troops in Iraq conducting patrols and aiding in reconstruction. Estonians are serving in Afghanistan, they're detecting and removing explosives, and Estonian troops serve side-by-side with Americans in Baghdad. Latvia has a team in Kabul, Afghanistan, clearing mines, and soldiers in Iraq providing convoy security and patrols. Your commitment to freedom has brought sacrifice. We remember Lieutenant Olafs Baumanis, who was killed in Iraq. We ask for God's blessings for his family, and we're honored that his wife, Vita, is here with us today."
Speaking of which, there's an issue here that apparently needs to be set straight. Some undiplomatic yahoos have apparently used official positions to denigrate these sacrifices, and the reasons that motivated them, as materialism or servitude. The reverse is true, and anyone who doesn't understand that simply proves he doesn't understand anything about this region, or the global events of the last 60 years. Unlike his defeated opponent, Bush understands:
"It's no surprise that Afghanistan and Iraq find strong allies in the Baltic nations. Because you've recently known tyranny, you are offended by the oppression of others. The men and women under my command are proud to serve with you. Today I'm honored to deliver the thanks of the American people."
That's good diplomacy - praising real support in a way that demonstrates knowledge of one's audience, and setting that common effort in a shared moral framework that strengthens the likelihood of cooperation in the future. That's how real leaders cultivate real allies. More on that moral framework, and the ties that bind:
"We seek democracy in that region for the same reasons we spent decades working for democracy in Europe -- because freedom is the only reliable path to peace. If the Middle East continues to simmer in anger and resentment and hopelessness, caught in a cycle of repression and radicalism, it will produce terrorism of even greater audacity and destructive power. But if the peoples of that region gain the right of self-government, and find hopes to replace their hatreds, then the security of all free nations will be strengthened. We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability. We have learned our lesson; no one's liberty is expendable. In the long run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others. And so, with confidence and resolve, we will stand for freedom across the broader Middle East."
In this, he echoes Czech dissident-turned-President Vaclav Havel:
"Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens, there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and their state, there can be no guarantee of external peace. A state that ignores the will and the rights of its citizens can offer no guarantee that it will respect the will and the rights of other peoples, nations, and states. A state that refuses its citizens their right to public supervision of the exercise of power will not submit to international supervision. A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit. A manipulated population can be misused in serving any military adventure whatever. Unreliability in some areas arouses justifiable fear of unreliability in everything. A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states. All of this leads to the conclusion that respect for human rights is the fundamental condition and the sole, genuine guarantee of true peace. Suppressing the natural rights of citizens and peoples does not secure peace - quite the contrary, it endangers it. A lasting peace and disarmament can only be the work of free people."
This kind of moral clarity is the beginning. It all starts from there.
PowerLine is right to see this as one more plank in The Bush Doctrine, a set of beliefs that this President has communicated repeatedly and consistenly during his Presidency.
At this point, anyone who says he hasn't been communicating his message, hasn't been listening.
Now, does The Bush Doctrine require the armed destruction of every despotic regime? No.
The Tibetans are likely to find the China's slow-motion genocide continues without foreign intervention, given that the stakes would be nuclear war. They cannot be helped in that way - but this does not make their freedom expendable, as in something we should trade away and stop supporting. That's what we mean by "no one's liberty is expendable." Back to W.:
"In these decades of struggle and purpose, the Baltic peoples kept a long vigil of suffering and hope. Though you lived in isolation, you were not alone. The United States refused to recognize your occupation by an empire. The flags of free Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania - illegal at home - flew proudly over diplomatic missions in the United States. And when you joined hands in protest and the empire fell away, the legacy of Yalta was finally buried, once and for all. The security and freedom of the Baltic nations is now more than a noble aspiration; it is the binding pledge of the alliance we share. The defense of your freedom - in defense of your freedom you will never stand alone."
An important message, given some of Putin's rumblings lately about the great tragedy of the lost Soviet empire.
In contrast President Bush and his Latvian hosts understand that the real tragedy was that evil empire's existence. Unlike the fawning Europeans, who consider it "unsophisticated" even to support freedom verbally when money is at stake, W. isn't afraid to say so.
Must be that vulgar American cowboy thing. And pardner... smile when you say that.
The hollow men of Europe haven't been the only ones to criticize, either. Deacon from PowerLine:
"Bush has been criticized for alienating our "friend" Russia by visiting Latvia and Georgia. But Russia's problem with Bush's visits to countries that the Soviet Union victimized shows how far Russia from being our friend Russia must remain given Putin's aspirations for empire status. Recently Putin bemoaned the "tragic" demise of the Soviet Union. He sounds more and more like Nikita Khrushchev every day, as he insists that the Latvians provoked the Soviets to invade and when he derides the U.S. for not being truly democratic, citing the 2000 election. But at least Khrushchev was critical of Stalin.
The Middle East represents the subtext of Bush's speech in Latvia, as John points out. But President Bush also recognizes that the western states of the former Soviet Union could themselves once again become a major battleground in the struggle for freedom."
I'm not sure I go quite that far, but the subtext of the message to Putin here is a good point. Which brings us to the inevitable tension between realism and idealism. W.:
"In this great objective, we need a realism that understands the difficulties. But we must turn away from a pessimism that abandons the goal and consigns millions to endless tyranny."
Ideas matter. Hope matters. Faith manages. That was Reagan's message - and now it's George W. Bush's too:
"And we have reason for optimism. When the people of Afghanistan were finally given the vote, they chose humane rulers and a future of freedom. When the people of the Palestinian Territories went to the polls, they chose a leader committed to negotiation instead of violence. When Iraqi voters turned out by the millions, they repudiated the killers who hate and attack their liberty. There's much work ahead, but the direction of events is clear in the broader Middle East: Freedom is on the march."
I'm not so sure about the Palestinians. If the genocidal goals are still part of their fabric, a switch from violence to negotiations is just another means to evil. But it's too early to render a definitive verdict; we'll see. Speaking of "we'll see":
"Recent elections have brought a tremendous catalyst for change, and more are on the way. Elections are set to start at the end of this month in Lebanon, and those elections must go forward with no outside interference. The people of Lebanon now have the opportunity to bridge old divides and build an independent government. Egypt will hold a presidential election this fall. That election should proceed with international monitors, and with rules that allow for a real campaign."
By the way, in case you missed his earlier bit about The Bush Doctrine's basis:
"In the Middle East, we are seeing the rule of law -- the rule of fear give way to the hope of change. And brave reformers in that region deserve more than our praise. The established democracies have a duty to help emerging democracies of the broader Middle East. They need our help, because freedom has deadly enemies in that region -- men who celebrate murder, incite suicide, and thirst for absolute power. By aiding democratic transitions, we will isolate the forces of hatred and terror and defeat them before violence spreads."
President Bush's consistency in standing up for democracy in the Arab world is being noted in the region, but that by itself isn't enough. People have to see that the autocrats will not always be on the winning side, and that the words are more than just rhetoric.
Reagan delivered that in his time. In our time, America has destroyed the Islamist Taliban, destroyed Saddam's regime and then delivered free elections in Iraq, supported the Lebanese protests once the Lebanese people realized Syria's tyranny could end, and pushes countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to change. Now Kuwait is giving women full political rights.
By backing up those words with action, supporters of the war on Islamofascism have changed the terms of debate in the Middle East.
Moral clarity. Translated into resolve. Backed up by action. There's no magic to it - and yet, there is.
W.'s next bit echoes some points that Egyptian writer Tarek Heggy made here, in The Institutions of Democracy are More Important Than Democracy. It also speaks to some of Amy Chua's work explaining how democracy can become dangerous. W.:
"Yet we've also learned that sovereignty and majority rule are only the beginnings of freedom. The promise of democracy starts with national pride, and independence, and elections. But it does not end there. The promise of democracy is fulfilled by minority rights, and equal justice under the rule of law, and an inclusive society in which every person belongs. A country that divides into factions and dwells on old grievances cannot move forward, and risks sliding back into tyranny. A country that unites all its people behind common ideals will multiply in strength and confidence.
True. Having a future orientation matters. It's one of the USA's national virtues, and a big component of its success. W. goes on, and throws in another kicker:
"The successful democracies of the 21st century will not be defined by blood and soil. Successful democracies will be defined by a broader ideal of citizenship - based on shared principles, shared responsibilities, and respect for all. For my own country, the process of becoming a mature, multi-ethnic democracy was lengthy and violent. Our journey from national independence to equal injustice [sic] included the enslavement of millions, and a four-year civil war. Even after slavery ended, a century passed before an oppressed minority was guaranteed equal rights. Americans found that racial division almost destroyed us, and the false doctrine of "separate but equal" was no basis for a strong and unified country. The only way we found to rise above the injustices of our history was to reject segregation, to move beyond mere tolerance, and to affirm the brotherhood of everyone in our land."
Shades of Bill Clinton, and in a foreign country, yet! I wonder what Tom DeLay thinks of that?
I suspect a few Europeans will also listen to those words with discomfort, given that many European countries do indeed have self-definitions that revolve around blood and soil. In using these words, Bush is defending and articulating the uniqueness of the North American experiment. It's uniqueness that often requires some explanation in Europe, as this story from Peace Corps volunteer Rob Young illustrates.
But W's next words are aimed directly at Latvia itself, which has a Russian minority that Stalin and his heirs inserted after sending hundreds of thousands of native Latvians to their deaths in the Gulags. His words are a warning to both sides:
"Latvia is facing the challenges that come with ethnic diversity, and it's addressing these challenges in a uniformly peaceful way. Whatever the historical causes, yours is now a multi-ethnic society - as I have seen on my visit. No wrongs of the past should ever be allowed to divide you, or to slow your remarkable progress. While keeping your Latvian identity and language, you have a responsibility to reach out to all who share the future of Latvia. A welcoming and tolerant spirit will assure the unity and strength of your country. Minorities here have a responsibility as well - to be citizens who seek the good of the country in which they live. As inclusive, peaceful societies, all of the Baltic nations can be models to every nation that follows the path of freedom and democracy."
By laying down these terms, the President also puts down a marker in another debate. This concept is the antithesis of the traditional Islamic concept of dhimmitude - and of the ethic followed by many Islamic organizations in the West. To my mind, these criteria set out the right mix of tolerance and backbone required in our current war.
Frankly, if "stopping... societies from becoming the homicidal hells Mr. Bush described in his Latvia speech" is our goal, I'm becoming more sympathetic to the Right to Bear Arms as a universal human right on par with freedom of speech and religion. U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice's personal experience as a child in Birmingham adds an interesting dimension; I hope she talks about this abroad.
Meanwhile, a new course has begun. Proclaiming the importance of freedom to American foreign policy has been a major break with the past. "Yes, we supported dictators in the past. In today's environment, that's usually a mistake." In a world full of dictators and thugs, dealing with them will sometimes be a necessary evil (take the Saudis -- please). When it is, it will now have to be acknowledged as such.
That's progress.
Now, in Yalta, comes the related plank: America's support for freedom will not be signed away by treaty, either.
That, too, is progress.
So, now what?
Victor Davis Hanson sees The Bush Doctrine's Next Test in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Others say Iran is the next test, based on pillar #5 in Winds' explanation of the Bush Doctrine. In truth, it will be tested in many places. More, it will be tested over time.
Always in motion, the future is. This isn't a fight that can be won immediately. It will come in stages, sometimes incompletely. All amidst a future in which weapons of mass destruction will be a growing fixture. Tough decisions lie ahead, our information to make them will be incomplete, and both action and inaction carry grave risks.
Still, there is hope:
"Sixty years ago, on the 7th of May, the world reacted with joy and relief at the defeat of fascism in Europe. The next day, General Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that "history's mightiest machine of conquest has been utterly destroyed." Yet the great democracies soon found that a new mission had come to us - not merely to defeat a single dictator, but to defeat the idea of dictatorship on this continent. Through the decades of that struggle, some endured the rule of tyrants; all lived in the frightening shadow of war. Yet because we lifted our sights and held firm to our principles, freedom prevailed.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, the freedom of Europe, won by courage, must be secured by effort and goodwill. In our time, as well, we must raise our sights. In the distance we can see another great goal - not merely the absence of tyranny on this continent, but the end of tyranny in our world. Once again, we're asked to hold firm to our principles, and to value the liberty of others. And once again, if we do our part, freedom will prevail."
With moral clarity, and resolve, backed up by action, a better world is possible. Without it, we face The Islamic War - or worse, a "3 Conjectures" world.
That cannot be. That must not be.
Do, or do not. There is no "try."
Joe, you did not disappoint.
And its a future full of mistakes, setbacks, recriminations by the ankle biters. but we can still get there from here.
As for the NION bloodstained left, they need not worry, History will record their lack of support and outright opposition, that all progress made was in spite of them.
As if that was anthing new, even down under the left are being fingered for their history of unhelpfullness
so dictators could no longer rise up and feed ancient grievances, and conflict would not be repeated again and again." ... A vision Clinton was true to in Bosnia.
Unfortunately the party of FDR was true to that vision only because Clinton was. No more Clinton, no more vision.
I recall at the time that there was much talk about Bosnia being Europe's turf and Europe's responsibility. But as we know today, it is absolutely impossible to imagine all of Europe combined (excluding Britain) accomplishing the slightest thing in Bosnia. Given Russia's political opposition, it's unlikely they even would have tried.
Maybe so. But (Bill) Clinton was true to it, and he deserves respect for that.
Kosovo was a watershed moment for a number of liberals, who had their worldviews jolted - and in some cases, rearranged. Its effects are still being felt.
And it's possible to imagine all of Europe accomplishing something in Bosnia (the Germans played a quiet but major role training and arming the Croatians, thus ending the problems in the North). It's equally clear, however, that they refused to act on their very doorstep in Bosnia until the U.S. forced their hand.
But then, the EU's doctrine and raison d'etre isn't liberty, and "responsibility" isn't a big watchword with them either.
America has made different choices.
Bush has been referring to "peaceful societies" fairly often lately, such as his comment about Latvia quoted in this post. It's a shame he really doesn't understand how to foster social peacefulness.
Or maybe you just 'misunderestimate' him. Again. Still.
the kind of Peace Bruce refers to is Socialist butchers piling up the skulls of the innocent in Peace .... let evil crush the innocent with abandon
Right Bruce ?
Since stopping such requires something you would never allow.
One more point, Joe. It was prevailing wisdom or common knowledge at one time but seems to have been lost with the passage of time after the War. It's not that we misunderstood the Soviets or their intentions. It was a bit of hubris, perhaps, on Roosevelt's part but it was at least once commonly believed that Roosevelt believed that he could handle the Soviets and he may have been right. But death comes to all men, even Roosevelt, and we'll never know.
This is neither an attack on Roosevelt nor a defense. But this is what people were saying 40 or 45 years ago.
the USA didn't have a working atomic bomb at the time of Yalta.
No, it did not. I was describing the post-war options that could have been used to enforce the terms of Yalta. Will clarify.
No, prak, but we did after the war when the Soviet Union was consolidating its hold on eastern Europe.
how many?
As far as I'm concerned, FDR and Truman have been vindicated. The Soviets would have been much tougher to confront than the Nazi's. If having called Stalin's bluff, would we have been willing to back it up?
Even if we were ready, it's not clear that we'd have won a war against the USSR. We would have likely lost it, just as the Germans did. The status quo ante looks pretty good, all things considered.
The way history stands, we honored our alliance with the USSR only to be betrayed by them. We stood firm during the Cold War and eventually the Iron Curtain collapsed and communism was disgraced. That's actually better than if we had militarily defeated it. Every sane person now knows that it just doesn't work.
The suffereing of Eastern Europe under the cummunists must be acknowledged. That was unfortunate. It was also unfortunate that we didn't have the power to prevent it.
Looked it up. Small arsenal by 1947 with only 13 a-bombs, all fission. There were 56 a-bombs by 1948 - and of course, no hydrogen bombs until 1952.
This article offers a useful look at America's window as the sole atomic power, and what was going on at the time, while America Faces the Atomic Age looks at some of the political issues that swirled around the bomb.
It seems to me that we need to distinguish the agreements reached at Yalta from the legacy of Yalta. The Yalta agreements called for a democratic Europe:
Isn't this the Bush doctrine? Instead of apologizing for Yalta, shouldn't Bush have appologized for the delay in implementing Yalta? Or announced that the promise of Yalta had finally been fulfilled?
That would be the Schelsinger argument, PD--that Stalin broke his word at Yalta, and that it was some kind of proto-Helsinki.
Joe: (the Germans played a quiet but major role training and arming the Croatians, thus ending the problems in the North).
But you'll recall that those rearmed Croats became something of a problem themselves, and it wasn't Germany that reined them in. It was a Canadian force under Lt. Col. James Calvin, who whipped the Croats at Medak. Small thanks they got for it, too.
Nice work, Joe.
Brilliant, Joe!
Some points:
In my opinion a sick FDR and a weary Churchill didn't tackle Stalin's ambitions in Yalta. Later in Postdam, Churchill had lost the elections and Truman was too inexperienced and self confident because America had already the bomb. Stalin knew it but didn't show it, he was the big player and the others, too young in international politics, couldn't follow him.
Take also into account that the Soviet way of thinking wasn't known in the Western World until George F. Kennan, a man that worked in the US embassy in Moscow and died a few weeks ago, explained it around 1946. See Kissinger's Diplomacy. It is easy to consider things evident many years later, but they weren't then.
Democracies wouldn't have tollerated neither sociologically nor economically another total war, especially Britain. The capitalist system does not work properly with so much disturbances (in fact, now works so well because America guarantees it with its armed forces and wealth).
I don't think George W. Bush is the inventor of this policy, though in spite of being Western European I admire him. Jefferson noted that the will of the people was too changeable to directly influence foreign policy, so during many years Senators, the ones that share that responsibility with the President, were elected not by the people, but by the State Assemblies. Later this changed and, in my opinion, Jefferson, as always, was right, the American foreign policy lay far behind, for example, British, which was directed by an aristocracy.
I mean foreign policy was considered then to be too complicated, with its hidden maneouvers, shrewd movements and immoral allies to be a subject of public debate.
Then a man came and saw this weakness of the American political system, driven directly by public opinion, and thought, if we cannot change the system because we are Americans and the will of the majority is above everything, even in foreign policy, let's change the policy: it will be a popular one. We'll use something simple to convince the people, they will follow us and we will prevail. From a intrinsec weakness he made a strength. This man was Ronald Reagan.
Bush is just adapting this Reagan vision, though now the problem lies in explaining the people a much more complicated and ethereal phenomenon. That is what French politicians are waiting: to see him fail and American people become tired of the War against terror (French foreign policy is directed by an aristocracy, the Enarcs, so it is rather constant). Thank God we have Winds of Change.
The freedom of Eastern Europe may be seen as a fulfilment of Helsinki (1975), but it will never be seen as the fulfilment of Yalta. Especially not in Eastern Europe itself.
Truman himself explained Yalta as a fine agreement had the Russians held to it, which (as he also noted) they never did from Day 1. This is, of course, the inherent nature of politicist dictatorships - for reasons Havel explains above. As W. pointed out, Truman actually began to take action to correct this situation fairly quickly. Despite his caricature as a yokel, he had a deep understanding of history and enduring patterns in world events that was equalled by very few American Presidents before or since.
To call Yalta "proto-Helsinki" is a bit much, given its explicit provision to send tens of thousands of Russians back to near certain death. No, there was a darkness in Yalta from the very beginning, and the circumstaces that made its enforcement highly improbable combine to steep its words in still more blood - much the same way as the fine rhetoric of the Soviet constitution is tainted.
To go to Eastern Europe and call their freedom "the fulfilment of Yalta" would have been a diplomatic gaffe of a size... would you go to Africa and talk about all those "lucky" people who "got shipped to America for free and end up receiving a better life"? Because that's about the equivalent on the "idiot diplomatic moves" scale.
We may not have had all that much choice at the time, but the apology was still the right thing to do: right morally, right diplomatically, right in the way it was bridged to the great and terrible struggle for freedom that ensued.
A struggle that continues to this day - a struggle not just for democracy, but for true liberty.
Let freedom ring.
Isn't this the Bush doctrine?
There is two ways to look at this. You can assume that Bush is sane and that Bush only wants "democracies" who are allied to US interest. In this case Eastern Europe was democratic. Or you could assume that Bush is insane and he really wants democratic countries in the Middle East. Where the US would buy oil from is then a question i couldn't answer.
Yalta was the best, grosso modo, what could be got. It was quite obvious that liberating Eastern Europe against the wishes of the USSR was out of the question. The armies of the Western allies in Europe were a lot smaller than the Sovjet army. The Sovjets had also a lot better armor than the US or UK so in an armed conflict right after WWII it would have been likely that Spain would have been "liberated"
by the East instead of Poland by the West. You also have to remember that a significant part of the armed resistance in occupied Europe was communistic and that they would revolted had America attacked the USSR.
ps. Why don't you talk about the USA allowing the re-occupation of Indonesia and Algeria.
"The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history."
Hyperbole.
Algeria, Rwanda, Congo(leopard), Congo(independance), Congo(now), India, Hitler, slave trade, Stalin in the thirties, WWI were all much greater wrongs and they are only a (very) small selection of great wrongs in human history. The Eastern European occupation is something of the scale of the British occupation of Nigeria.
a., democracies will not always be allied to U.S. interests. Nor is there any guarantee in the Bush Doctrine that the USA must be friendly to any given democratic regime (vid. France).
What it is friendly to is the democratic process, and (as Tarek Heggy noted) the institutions of democracy and liberty.
Why?
Precisely because democracies are accountable to their populaces, the costs of hate, hostility, backward policies, and non-military pressure from outside all loom rather larger for such regimes than they do for autocracies.
The problems of the Arab/Islamic world are deep-seated, and of their own making. Autocracy prefers to ignore or divert them rather than cure them. That's a recipe for disaster. Greater freedom and accountability will serve to expose more of the ugliness that is currently papered over - but at least then there is some hope of effective diplomacy, forced realism within those societies, and perhaps a longer-term cure.
Meanwhile, the oil will flow regardless. Assuming that governments continue to exist in the Middle East, they need to sell that oil at least as much as we need to buy it. And it's a global market.
How long do you think they will sell oil to America while it is supporting Israel?
"a", maybe you should inform yourself on how much oil the US gets from the Middle East. You might learn something - such as we get relatively little from that region.
We get far more from this hemisphere.
The oil market is mostly a world market. It matters little whether Saudi Arabia will sell us oil or if Norway will.
Joe: To go to Eastern Europe and call their freedom "the fulfilment of Yalta" would have been a diplomatic gaffe of a size...
Joe, I bet you could write an uplifting, yet conciliatory speech on the E. European tragedy that didn't demonize Yalta. Hey, you sort of did.
A: I hate to play "who was worse," there are too many good candidates, but India?
PD Shaw, you could. But as I pointed out, delivering it in Eastern Europe would be foolish. To many people there, Yalta WAS a demon. You might wish to consider their point of view more carefully. And even if your take on Yalta was objectively correct (and that's far from certain), why would you even start that argument with a genuine ally on a diplomatic visit and piss them off?
Unless you're John Kerry, perhaps. Never can tell with him; it's a gift.
A normal statesman will apologize for their pain, remind them that we all won in the end, then thank them for their brave support and assumed resonsibilities re: the freedom of others. A good one will apologize sincerely, go on as above, then invite them to remain valued allies in a noble mission that speaks to their deep self-identity and extends into the future.
Which is exactly what W. did.
a: The Eastern European occupation is something of the scale of the British occupation of Nigeria.
Are you kidding?
I guess that means that Hitler's occupation of Western Europe was something on the scale of British adventures in South Africa.
If I were a senator, I'm afraid I would not to vote to confirm you as ambassador to Poland.
The problem was Munich, After that, Yalta can be considered just a high probability outcome.
Thus the necessity of invading Iraq.
Glen, one wonders which flag they would find the more offensive .. perhaps two of those moonbats should carry a nazi and soviet flag around in Prage and see which of them gets spit on and beat up first, or even if in the postmortum the remains could be identified as to who was who.
I know the US get most of its oil from America as it is the nearest market. It is not the oil the US buy from the gulf that is a problem but the oil that Japan and Europe will buy if they can't buy oil from the Gulf. They can afford way higher prices before their transport system gets in trouble.
Number of deaths by the hands of the USSR occupation of Eastern Europe is really small. 267 in Berlin '53, 50 000 Hungary '56, can't find only one death for Prague '68.
British occupation of Nigeria is very quite. They had the assaults on Kano and Sokoto in 1903, the 1906 uprising of runaway slaves and the 1929 women's protest of aba.
My guess is that the number of deaths are about equal
More of that leftist history A ?
As I said, holocaust denial aint cool.
Raymond, i'm not left but it is simply not true that the occupation by the USSR of Eastern Europe was one of the greatest wrongs of human history. I wish it was but humans have done a lot that was much worse.
I guess that means that Hitler's occupation of Western Europe was something on the scale of British adventures in South Africa.
Western Europe had a population about 10 times as big as South Africa which makes it very hard to compare. You also have the holocaust on jews and other "undesirables" but if you look at what the Nazi's occupation of Westen Europe would have looked like without the holocaust than the answer is quite clear.
I see now. a is trying to objectify "wrong" by body count. For instance, the democide site referenced by Joe estimates that 24-181 czechs were murdered by their government from 1948-68. Probably comparable to the rate of wrongful executions in the United States in the first half of the 20th century.
By that moral reckoning though, slavery was not the greatest wrong perpetrated in the United States since slaves were valuable commodities that were rarely killed. Arguably, the "body count" increased for African-Americans after emancipation.
Not only in bodycount. The Sovjet occupation of Eastern Europe wasn't particulary bad if you look at kills or hunger, selfrealization or any other objective. Calling it one of the greatest wrongs of history shows that you don't know human history.
There you go again, as I said, Holocaust denial aint cool.
PD Shaw, add 3 zeros to that figure
Communist Mass murder in Europe
Bugaria . . . . 222,000
Czechoslovakia . 65,000
East Germany . . 70,000
Hungary . . . . 27,000
Poland . . . . . 22,000
Romania . . . . 435,000
Yugoslavia . . . 1,172,000
Total . . . . . 2,013,000
USSR . . . . . . 61,911,000
I wonder if A is going to deny what the germans did by holding up the figures for its smallest camp ?
Typical leftist misdirection tactic.
Add in the commie mass murder elsewhere, and your 100+ Million, and climbing.
Raymond, you mix two different things. The occupation of Eastern Europe by the Sovjet union was in my view between 48 and 89 and during that time there were much fewer deaths than the numbers you give. But that is because most of those deaths fell before 48 or in case of Yugoslavia in a country that was never occupied by the Sovjets. You could claim that the Sovjets should have left in may but than the US should have left Iraq in 2003